


Barter (the draped in stolen finery remix)

by maypop



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: F/F, Gen, Genderbending, Nyotalia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-15
Updated: 2012-04-15
Packaged: 2017-11-03 17:39:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/384108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maypop/pseuds/maypop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>France finds Liechtenstein in a field, her supper spread in front of her on a cloth, and makes her leave it half eaten... A remix of the excellent Ransom, by VampirePaladin!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Barter (the draped in stolen finery remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [VampirePaladin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/VampirePaladin/gifts).



France finds Liechtenstein in a field, her supper spread in front of her on a cloth, and makes her leave it half eaten. She doesn’t even get to take the cloth. Liechtenstein is yanked onto France’s horse half hungry and full scared, and silent-angry in the way tiny nations must be. As she watches her own lands fall away behind her, she thinks:

_France has gone mad again._

That's Austria, in her head. Liechtenstein is small. If she is not very careful, she finds Austria's thoughts in her own mouth, which is not a good place for them to be, because there are things empire can say that will get Liechtenstein killed. (One of them is that Austria is a very curious woman, to define _mad_ as "scooping up little countries to add to her own consequence.")

 _The French are such hostile people,_ Austria-in-her-mind adds, before Liechtenstein closes her eyes and makes her go away.

“Will she come for you in person?” France asks.

Liechtenstein nods, and tries to make herself comfortable between the jutting pommel and France’s body. Some of the stitches in the collar of her dress came loose when France pulled her up--France is crackling across Europe like a brushfire, and no longer knows her own strength. Liechtenstein has never had that luxury.

France combs her fingers through Liechtenstein’s hair, and snaps the reins. “Good.”

Liechtenstein falls asleep on a chaise longue in one of France's many stolen houses, apron flipped up between her cheek and the scratchy damask. France forgets to send dinner in. 

She wakes up with France standing over her. France is too much herself to look nonplussed, but she does look like Liechtenstein is a coat hanging in the wrong wardrobe.

"Do I know you?" she says.

"You _stole_ me."

"Did I? Oh, yes, I did. I have lovely taste," France reflects. She sips her coffee. There's only one cup. "Well, Hanau. I am much larger than you, and though I do not like to mention it, quite better at fighting. Do not, please, give me any trouble. There's breakfast, if you would like it."

"Liechtenstein," she says. "Not Hanau."

"Sure," France says, but her face is already turning towards something else.

The food is always good, in France's house, at least. Liechtenstein loves Hungary, of course, most of the smaller states do, she can always be counted on to wade into it with Austria when the rest of them are getting a swift dose of imperial glory right in the teeth, but sometimes you can tell she's confused spices for enemy action again. 

Liechtenstein crumples bread into tiny pieces and wonders what Hungary would do. Someone trying to pull _her_ up on a horse would get a nasty lesson. 

Without giving herself time to think it through, Liechtenstein curls her hand around the bread knife.

France is reading reports on the other side of the table. She doesn't look up.

Liechtenstein lays it down again.

"Lucerne, hand me the cream," France says, and the pattern of their days is set.

Being a hostage is awkward, not the France seems to know this. She does not have the courtesy to set a guard on her. Liechtenstein gets some castoffs to wear, she guesses from a maid. There are some books around, though not many in German. At meals France goes through every city in the Hanseatic league, including the ones who are _Dutch_ , and then names places at random, until Liechtenstein wonders if France is trying to make some sort of awful French joke. There's been no Thuringia since the 1200s.

"I fought you once, you know," Liechtenstein dares, once, when she’s been there three weeks. She says it and is immediately certain that--yes, she does, France reaches out and ruffles her hair. "Several times. Actually. My prince, Johann Joseph--"

"Please do not tell me his name, Germans have never known when to stop naming a child."

"He's a cavalryman," Liechtenstein says, staring at her plate. "He's very good. Austria esteems him highly."

"The stories I could tell you about Austria and cavalrymen," France says. Her gaze is quite even and, for once, resting on Liechtenstein. 

Liechtenstein flushes. "He's militarily useful, she says."

"Austria says, Austria says, and I am sure she is an honest and straightforward woman who makes you feel so appreciated, Löwenstein," France says. "I bet he has thighs like oxen."

And that is the end of that conversation, forever. Eventually Liechtenstein manages to make France remember her for enough minutes in a row to get needle and thread, and she's repairing her loosened collar when word finally comes.

France picks her up and kisses her on both cheeks and the tip of her nose. "She is _furious_ , little Paderborn!" 

And so France is delighted, and her arms feel like iron bars. Liechtenstein can't move enough to check if her stitches have pulled out. She just turns her face aside and concentrates on pulling in one breath, and another--being this close to the French Empire is stifling, it makes her skin crawl, it makes everything in her head terrifyingly loud, and it's saying that to be French is to hate Germans, she must _do something_ or be consumed--

"Oh," France says, and drops her. Liechtenstein lands on the floor, back hitting the seat painfully, her dress tangled around her knees.

"Oh," France says again. Liechtenstein's needle stands out from her side, and slowly a tiny flower of red unfolds around it. "Well, Hesse. If you _insist_." 

She yanks the needle out, snapping the thread without a thought, and tosses it aside. Liechtenstein presses back into the couch until the legs start to slide on the floor.

“I’m sorry,” Liechtenstein gasps. “I’m really sorry.”

France’s face softens, a bit. Her nostrils unflare, her forehead smooths. “Of course you did not mean it.”

“I,” Liechtenstein said. “I really, really did. Do.”

There’s a cell, after that. And the food isn’t nearly so nice.

It’s hard to keep a routine, in a cell. There’s no sun, and no real dark. Liechtenstein takes to drowsing in the middle of the day. The part of her that stretches beyond her skin tells her that her lands are fine--there are many voices in a nation’s head. They make them do stupid things, sometimes, make countries forget they have bones that can shatter, even if mountains can’t.

A week after being locked in, Liechtenstein wakes in the middle of the day, suddenly, abruptly, with the conviction her teeth are going to rattle out of her head. The cell is perfectly still. Austria had arrived.

She came for me herself, Liechtenstein thinks, and wraps her arms around herself tightly. She hadn’t really believed it. The Habsburg Lands, the Imperial and royal armies, had come for--

She can see a bit of the hallway, from her cell. Liechtenstein is mountain country; she has good eyes. France has Austria pinned against the wall, her mended skirts hiked up around one of France’s busy, busy hands. Austria looks--she doesn’t look like _she_ has any trouble breathing with France so close to her. Her chest is heaving, and her hands are fisted in the red, red fabric of France’s dress.

Liechtenstein goes back to her cot. She sits, and after a few minutes, stretches out on it again. Someone, it’s Austria, she lived down the hall from her long enough, _Austria_ is making little noises.

 _Grown up games for grown up nations, little Darnstadt,_ France says, in her imagination.

Johann I Joseph doesn’t even live in Liechtenstein’s borders, not even in peacetime. Liechtenstein bunches up her apron behind her head, closes her eyes, and doesn’t dream of a day when someone will like her the best. She is a very small nation, and she knows everything her neighbors know.


End file.
